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Critical Reading for college and beyond Chapter 6


Finding supporting details.


What are supporting details?

Author use details to illustrate and explain their main ideas. Unlike topics or main ideas, which are more general in nature, details consist of facts, examples, and other specific information. They are two types of details: major supporting details, which are the ideas and arguments an author uses to validate his or her main point or points; and minor supporting detail, used to clarify and enhance the major from minor ones, you will be able to follow an author’s line of reasoning and see how will the ideas in a reading passage are related to each other.
Details are frequently introduced by word clues and phrases, such as for example and more reason. The pattern used to organized major details shows how they are related to one another as well as how they are related to one another as well as how they support an author’s main point or idea.
Major details provided support to the main idea in a reading. Minor details clarify major details.
If you are able to distinguish between the major and minor supporting details in a reading passage, it means you have understood what you read.
Knowing how to locate the main idea and the major and minor supporting details in a reading assignment is the foundation of college reading. Being able to identify the main ideas of information and supporting details will help you evaluate what is the most important and determine what you need to remember for tests.